Pay Dirt

by Rita Mae Brown

  “I should be there with you. This isn’t your fault.”

  “I appreciate that, but the duty is mine to break the news to our investors and customers. Why don’t you just go home and sleep? You look like you need it. I appreciate how hard you’ve worked on this.”

  “Well”—Norman folded his hands behind his back—“there has to be an answer.”

  “Yeah”—Hogan smiled weakly—“I just hope I live long enough to find it. Some slick investigator will figure this out. I spoke to an old college buddy down in Virginia Beach at Atlantic Savings and he said the bank has already retained the services of Lorton & Rabinowitz.”

  “The experts on corporate sabotage.” Norman’s pupils widened.

  Hogan stood up. “Go on, get some sleep.”

  Wednesdays Fair worked the western end of Albemarle County. That was his excuse to show up at Harry’s farm. He found her repairing fences on the back line of her property.

  “In the neighborhood.”

  “So I see,” Harry replied.

  “I was wrong. That guy pisses me off, but I was wrong.”

  “How about an apology for hanging up on me.”

  “That too. If you’d waited a minute, I would have gotten to that. I’m sorry I swore at you and hung up.” He jammed his hands in his pockets.

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “Sure.”

  They worked side by side as they had done for the years of their marriage. The light faded, the mosquitoes appeared, but they pressed on until it was too dark. They knew one another so well, they could work in silence without worrying about it.

  20

  The hot, hazy, humid days of August fled before a mass of cool, sparkling air from Canada, the second in the last ten days. The clear skies and rejuvenating seventy-degree temperatures delighted everyone’s senses except perhaps those of Hogan Freely, Norman Cramer, and Mim Sanburne. Not that people clapped their hands when they heard over the morning radio and local television that money was missing from the bank, but in the relief from summer’s swelter it didn’t seem so immediately important. Also, they believed Hogan when he declared their funds were secure.

  Mrs. Hogendobber drove over to Waynesboro Nursery. She wanted a pin oak for the northern corner of her property, a half-acre lot right behind the post office on the other side of the alleyway.

  Mrs. Murphy slept in the mail cart. Tucker stretched out under the table in the back. Harry boiled water for tea to counteract her midmorning slump.

  The door opened. Aysha glanced around before stepping inside. “Morning.”

  “Morning, Aysha. No one’s here.”

  “As long as Kerry’s not around.” Aysha slipped the key in her mailbox, opened the heavy little door, and scooped out her mail. “I suppose you heard what happened yesterday. I guess everyone has.”

  “Market said you and Kerry got into it.” Harry shrugged. “It’ll blow over.”

  Aysha placed her mail on the counter. “She’s mental. How can it blow over when she’s obsessed with Norman and likewise obsessed with me—negatively, of course. If he had been in love with her, if it had been the right combination, he would have stayed, right?”

  “I guess.” Harry was never comfortable when people veered toward analyzing one another. She figured psychology was another set of rules with which to restrain people. Instead of invoking the wrath of God, one now invoked self-esteem, lack of fulfillment, being out of touch with one’s emotions. The list could go on and on. She tuned out.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Aysha wondered. “Hide? Not appear at any social function where Kerry might be present lest I bruise her fragile emotions? Everybody wants to be loved by everybody. That’s her real problem, it’s not just Norman. She has to be the center of attention. This sure is one way to get it. Why . . . I even worry about going into the bank. If she had any decency, she’d transfer to another branch. Norman says he avoids her like the plague.”

  Harry thought Kerry a bit emotional, but the Kerry she knew didn’t fit Aysha’s description. “Right now neither one of you can be expected to feel good about the other. Ignore her if you can.”

  “Ignore someone who would have killed me if she could?”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “You weren’t there. She would have killed me if Cynthia hadn’t separated us. Thank God she was there. I’m telling you, Harry, the girl is disturbed.”

  “Love does strange things to people.”

  Susan and Mim, one by the front door the other by the back, entered at the same time.

  “How’s Norman?” Mim asked.

  “Stressed out. He can’t sleep. He’s frantic over the missing money.” She knitted her eyebrows. “And this episode with Kerry preys on his mind. He insisted on going to work today, on being there when Hogan made his press statement. I keep telling him, ‘Honey, no one blames you,’ but he blames himself. He needs a vacation, something.”

  Mim changed the subject. “Marilyn will take your place at Ash Lawn tomorrow. I know she called and left a message on your machine, but since I’m here, I thought I’d tell you.”

  “Bless her heart.” Aysha’s face relaxed. “I can spend tomorrow with Norman. Maybe I can slip a tranquilizer into his coffee or something. Poor baby.”

  Susan, in her tennis blouse and skirt, checked the old railroad clock. “Harry, I’m late for my game. You gonna be around tonight?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m on the back fence line.”

  “Okay. Ned’s going to Richmond, so I’ll bring a cold supper.”

  “Great.”

  Susan left, Aysha swept out, and Mim stayed. She flipped up the divider and walked behind the counter. As Harry’s tea water was boiling, she poured Harry’s cup of tea and one for herself too. “New seat covers.”

  “Miranda couldn’t stand the old ones. She’s so good at stuff like this.”

  “Harry, will you do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “When you sort the mail, if you see an unusual number of registered letters or large packages from brokerage houses”—she paused—“I guess you can’t tell me, but call Rick Shaw immediately.”

  Harry gratefully sipped the hot beverage. “I can do that.”

  “I think the money has to go somewhere. Buying large quantities of stock would be one place, although not the safest. I considered that.” Her large gold bangle bracelets clanged together when she reached for her cup. “But a person could say the money was inherited or they could even be in collusion with a broker. But the culprit could be anywhere, and two million dollars doesn’t disappear.”

  Harry, not knowing much about high finance, said, “Is it difficult to get one of those numbered accounts in Switzerland?”

  “Not really.”

  “I would think the temptation to spend the money would be overwhelming. I’d buy a new tractor and truck today.”

  “Whoever did this is patient and highly skilled at deceit, but then, I suppose we all are to one extent or another.”

  “Patient or deceitful?” Harry laughed.

  “Deceitful. We learn early to mask our feelings, to be polite.”

  “Who would be smart enough to pull this off?”

  “Someone with a more rapacious appetite than the rest of us ever realized.”

  Just then Reverend Jones stepped into the post office.

  Mrs. Murphy looked up at her mother just as Mim did. Mim and Harry looked at the portly reverend and said, “Never.”

  “What are you girls talking about?”

  “Appetites,” Harry answered.

  Kerry McCray nibbled at carrot sticks and celery. She wasn’t hungry and she’d cried so much, she felt nauseated. Reverend Jones, just back from the post office, shepherded her to the slate patio in the back of his house, scrounged in the refrigerator for something to eat, and made some iced tea.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She teared up again, her upturned nose sniffing.

&n
bsp; “Everyone loses his or her temper. I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

  “I know, I know, but I love him and I don’t think she does. Oh, she fawns all over him for show, but she doesn’t really love him. How could she? All she thinks about is herself. She hasn’t changed much since grade school except she’s better-looking. The boob job helped.”

  Herb blushed. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “How can you miss it?”

  “Now, Kerry, if you dwell on Aysha and Norman, you’ll worry yourself to a shadow. You’ve lost weight. You’ve lost your sparkle.”

  “Reverend Jones, I pray. I ask for help. I think God’s put me on call-waiting.”

  He smiled. “That’s my Kerry. You haven’t lost your sense of humor. We are each tested in this life, although I don’t know why. I could quote you Scripture. I could even give you a sermon, but I don’t really know why we have to suffer as we do. War. Disease. Betrayal. Death. Some of us suffer greater hardships than others, but still, we all suffer. The richest and the poorest alike know heartache. Maybe it’s the only way we can learn not to be selfish.”

  “Then Aysha needs to suffer.”

  “I’ve felt that way about a few people I don’t much like, too, but you know, leave them to heaven. Trust me.”

  “I do, Reverend Jones, but I’d like to see her suffer. I don’t feel like waiting until I’m forty. In fact, I’d like to kill her.” Kerry’s lower lip trembled. “And that’s what scares me. I’ve never hated anyone like I hate her.”

  “It’ll pass, honey. Try to think about other things. Take up a new hobby or a vacation, something to jolt you out of your routine. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

  As Reverend Jones counseled Kerry with his mixture of warmth and good sense, Susan and Harry finished up the fence repairs.

  Mrs. Murphy chased a mouse. “Gotcha!” She grabbed at the mouse, but the little devil squirmed from under her paw to scoot under a pile of branches that Harry had made when she pruned the trees in the back.

  Tucker, also in on the chase, whined, “Come on out, coward.”

  “They never do.” Murphy checked the back of the woodpile just in case.

  “Locust posts are hard to find.” Harry admired the posts her father put in twenty years earlier. “The boards last maybe fifteen years, but these posts will probably outlast me.”

  “You’ll live a long time. You’ll replace them once before you go.” Susan picked up her hammer. “I should do this more often. No wonder you never gain an ounce.”

  “You say that, but you look the same as when we were in high school.”

  “Ha.”

  “Don’t accept the compliment, then.” Harry grinned, checked the ground for nails, and stood up. “Wish we had a little more light. We could take a trail ride.”

  “Me too. Let’s go over the weekend.”

  “Did I tell you what Mim said to me at her party? She said that men and women couldn’t really be friends. Do you believe that?”

  “No, but I think her generation does. I’ve got scads of male friends and Ned has women friends.”

  “But you still have to settle the issue of sex.”

  Susan swung her hammer to and fro. “If a man doesn’t mention it, I sure don’t. I think it’s their worry not ours. Think about it. If they don’t make a pass at a lady, have they insulted her? I suppose it’s more complicated than that, but it seems to me they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they take the cue from us that it’s okay to forget about it, then I think most of them do. Anyway, after a certain age a man figures out that the first three months sleeping with a new woman will be as thrilling as always. After that it’s the same old same old.”

  “Are we getting cynical?”

  “No. Realistic. Everyone you meet in life has problems. If you dump one person and pick up another, you’ve picked up a new set of problems. It might be that person number two’s problems are easier for you to handle, that’s all.”

  “I’m between person number one and person number two and I’m sick of problems. I’m considering being a hermit.”

  “Everyone says that. Fair’s person number one and—”

  “It galls me that he thinks he can waltz back into my life.”

  “Yeah, that would get me too, sometimes, but hey, give him credit for knowing you’re the right person and he screwed up.”

  “Screwed around.”

  “Mother, give him a break,” Tucker said.

  “Nonetheless, my point stands. As for Blair—”

  “Blair hasn’t declared himself, so I’m not taking him as seriously as everyone else is.”

  “But you like him—I mean, like him?” Susan’s voice was expectant.

  “Yeah—I like him.”

  “You can be maddeningly diffident. I’m glad I’m not in love with you.” Susan punched her.

  “Don’t be ugly.”

  They trudged toward the barn in the distance. Mrs. Murphy raced ahead, sat down, and as soon as they drew near her, she’d race off again. Tucker plodded along with the humans.

  As they put away the tools, Harry blurted out, “Susan, when did the money disappear from the bank?”

  “Last week, why?”

  “No one has pinpointed an exact time, have they?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “There’s got to be a way to find out.” Harry grabbed the phone in the tack room and dialed Norman Cramer. She peppered the tired man with questions, then hung up. “He said he doesn’t know for certain the exact time, but yes, it could have started on August first.”

  Susan rolled the big red toolbox against the corner of the tack room. “The damn virus did work, but doesn’t it seem weird to you that other banks aren’t reporting missing funds?”

  “Yeah, it does. Come on into the house.”

  Once inside, Harry sat cross-legged on the floor of the library just as she did when she was a child. Books surrounded her. She paged through an Oxford English Dictionary. Susan, in Daddy Minor’s chair, propped her feet up on the hassock, leafing through a book on the timetables of history.

  Mrs. Murphy prowled the bookshelves as Tucker wedged her body next to Harry’s.

  “They’ve got all the books they need.”

  The cat announced, “There’s a mouse in the walls. I don’t care about the books.”

  “You won’t get her out. You haven’t been having much luck with mice lately.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “Say, where’s Paddy?” Tucker wondered where Mrs. Murphy’s ex, a handsome black and white tom with the charm and wit of the Irish, was living these days.

  “Nantucket. His people decided the island would be dull without him, so I guess he’s up there chasing seagulls and eating lots of fish.”

  Harry flipped to “thread.” It covered two pages of the unabridged version of the O.E.D.

  She found “threadbare,” which was first used in writing in 1362. The gap between when a word is used and when it is written down can be decades, not that it mattered in this case.

  Her eyes swept down the thin, fine grade of paper. “Ah-ha.”

  “Ah-ha what?”

  “Listen! ‘Threadneedle’ first appeared in writing in 1751. It’s a children’s game where all join hands. The players at one end of this human string pass between the last two at the other end and then all pass through.”

  “I can’t see that that has anything to do with the problem.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Are there other meanings?”

  “Yeah. As a verb phrase, ‘thread the needle.’ It was written in 1844. It refers to a dancing movement when a lady passes under her partner’s arm, their hands being joined.” Harry glanced up from the dictionary. “I never knew that.”

  “Me neither. Anything else?”

  “It can also mean to fire a rifle ball through an augur hole barely large enough to allow the ball to pass without enlarging the hole.” Harry closed the bi
g volume, making a thick, slapping sound. “What have you found?”

  “On August 1, 1137, King Louis VI of France died. So did Queen Anne of Britain in 1714.” She read some more. “And Germany declared war on Russia in 1914. Well, that certainly changed the world.”

  “Let’s try another book. There has to be something we’re missing.”

  “It could be a red herring, you know.”

  “Yeah, I do know, but there’s something about this that smells of superiority. Whoever is fooling around—”

  “Stealing.”

  “Right, whoever is stealing money is going to rub our noses in how dumb we are.”

  “Here.” Mrs. Murphy, with her paw, pulled out another book listing events in history. The book fell to the floor.

  “Murphy.” Harry shook her finger at the cat. “You can break a book’s spine doing that.”

  “Don’t be such a pill.”

  “Back talk.” Susan laughed. “It sounds exactly the same whether it’s your animals or your children.”

  “I never talk back,” Tucker stated.

  “Liar,” came the cat’s swift reply. She jumped down from the bookshelf to sit next to Harry. Susan left her chair and sat on the floor on the other side of Harry.

  “Okay. August first. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834.”

  “That reminds me, Mim was talking to Kate Bittner about the Civil War series on PBS. Mim said, ‘If I’d known it was going to cause this much fuss, I would have picked the cotton myself.’ ”

  Harry leaned back, hands on knees. “Jeez, what did Kate do?” As Kate was of African descent, this was not an idle question.

  “Roared. Just roared.”

  “Good for her. Think she’ll be voted president of the Democratic Party in the county?”

  “Yes, although Ottoline Gill and—”

  “Ottoline’s a Republican.”

  “Not anymore. She had a fight with Jake Berryhill. Bolted from the party.”

  “What a tempest in a teapot. Let’s see what else. In the Middle Ages, August first was considered an Egyptian Day which was supposed to be unlucky.”

  “Give me that.” Susan took the book from Harry. “You’re too slow.” Her eyes scanned the dense print. “Harry, here’s something.” She pointed to the item halfway down the page.